I hope it is a successful petition.

I would like to see a city reserve fund set up to fund volunteers that do the service for the community of organizing petitions against the AAP for things like travel costs, photo copying, and meals. It should not be at cost to the volunteers when the city is fully funded. That ain’t democracy.

If the city had a reserve fund of $70,000 that could be accessed, then it would help to hold in check the argument that the city could save money going the AAP route rather than direct democracy through a referendum.

Short of that then I think anything approved by an AAP process should have to be fully funded by the business community. If the business community wants to support candidates that once elected will use the AAP to ram new costs on tax payers, than let them pay for it. We need some accountability on the issue.

One person at city hall to verify all the submitted forms if the number is over the required 5351 and present the results to council on April 30th. Going to be quite a busy fellow
So if the AAP is successful does the city go ahead with a referendum? 10% of eligible voters who need to sign the AAP probably relates to 25% of the total number of people who voted in the last municipal election. Talk about a process skewed in the city’s favour.
To bad there is not a procedure for recall.

In my opinion, 5351 signatures should be an arbitrary number. If there are even 4000 signatures that should send a clear message to council that this should go before a referendum or dropped altogether. The AAP is supposed to be a tool to gauge the pulse of the community on a specific subject to see if it is necessary to go to a referendum. A hardline number to reach is simply another one sided way for politicians to do as they please.

But: “A hardline number to reach is simply another one sided way for politicians to do as they please. “

No it isn’t. It’s establishing the rules of the game so everyone knows what the goal of the AAP is. If it’s one signature short after all of the verifications have been done, it is not successful. Simple as that.

That being said, I hope the AAP is successful. I signed my form some time ago.

Politics as a whole has to change. Politicans have put themselves in a position of mistrust over the years, because they always take an adversarial stance against the very people who elected them to office. This has to stop. When there is a concerted effort on the behalf of citizens to make a political body accountable for thier actions the first thing they should do is revisit thier decision and see if it was the right one and to start an open and transparent dialogue with the people who elected them. Instead they hide behind a feeble attempt to circumvent democracy in a backward petition aimed at making it as inconvenient for people to have thier say. To assume this should be decided by 1 vote one way or the other is egotistical and a bit tyrannical in my opinion. A clear concensus should be enough. When an effort such as we are seeing is being displayed, that should be enough for any honest politican to stand up and say, lets look at this again.

But: “To assume this should be decided by 1 vote one way or the other is egotistical and a bit tyrannical in my opinion.”

As the old saying goes, close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades.

But: “A clear concensus should be enough.”

Who gets to decide what a clear consensus is?

It certainly shouldnt be decided by the people who are trying to use it to circumvent democracy. Remember, our esteemed council voted to increase the line from 5% to 10%. When the line on your side of the room makes it a tight squeeze for you, then simply move the line to your favour. Does that sound like democracy or tyranny to you?

Your avoidance of the questions only goes to show how hard it is to draw a line or determine what makes ‘a consensus’.

You can hate the line that’s been drawn, but you don’t get to change the rules or bend the interpretation to your liking when it suits you. In other words, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Also, you may want to look up what tyranny means in the dictionary. Your casual use of it insults the many people around the world who truly live under some form of it.

Oh pardon me for insulting people from around the world. What a load of PC crap. If you think I avoided the question I suggest you read it again.

“You can hate the line that’s been drawn, but you don’t get to change the rules or bend the interpretation to your liking when it suits you” .. yes, maybe you should give that advice to our politicans too.

Politicans have taken it upon themselves to do as they please as soon as they get elected, if you honestly can say you are ok with that, then what is the point of having an election? We may as well pull thier names out of a hat for all the good it does.

The 10% figure of 5,351 was obtained by the City from Elections BC and reflects the number of eligible voters at the time the process began. This number could have increased or decreased since then, because of people leaving the Province, or dying, or leaving town.

In any event it is the number that the City will use to determine whether or not the AAP was a success.

The fact that the City has gone to the AAP the last 6 times they wanted to borrow money, without making any effort what so ever to have any of the borrowing issues go to referendum, even though they could have included some of them on the ballot on previous elections, at no cost, tells me that they are doing everything they can to avoid a referendum on borrowing money.

So, the City takes whatever steps necessary to avoid going to a referendum, which is one of the two options allowed in the Community Charter.

This seems to me to be a little more than coincidence. In fact it looks like a concerted effort to circumvent the process. Seems City Hall doesnt want us to vote on their borrowing money, perhaps because they fear we will say no.

We need to win this AAP, and then we need to win the referendum if they decide to go that route, and then we need to change the process. The City needs to be brought to task for being somewhat less than honest in how they borrow money.

They are required by LAW to get the accent of the voters before they borrow money beyond a five year period. Accent is either through the AAP or a Referendum. To circumvent the process, makes it less than democratic, and in fact makes a mockery of it.

Sign the petition and return if before 5Pm Tuesday, and lets send a message to City Hall.

“You can hate the line that’s been drawn, but you don’t get to change the rules or bend the interpretation to your liking when it suits you”

Changing the rules is done by those who rule.

A rule is only as good, just or effective, as the motivation behind it Johnnybelt….in this case, the AAP “rules” are made to be as onerous as possible, to circumvent the “rule” if you will, of basic g.d. good governance.

More about rules: Hitler had some good ones, so does Afghanistan – you should move there. Nelly McClung and Rosa Parks had a bit to say about rules…the day we, as a society, stop questioning “rules” of those in positions of power is the day we are sunk.

“You can hate the line that’s been drawn, but you don’t get to change the rules or bend the interpretation to your liking when it suits you”…

Oh yes we can.

Hooray for the 51%. Screw the 49%. Sounds fair to me.

Ah yes, I was waiting for a cliche Hitler reference to come along. Thanks for not disappointing, bcnorth.

Don’t be hatin’ me for telling it like it is. At least Palopu understands the rules of the game and is willing to play by them, for better or worse.

“They are required by LAW to get the accent of the voters before they borrow money beyond a five year period. “

I have a Canadian accent. Eh.

I have my fingers crossed for 5,351 signed and valid forms.

If city council had integrity, they’d opt for a referendum in the first place. Council chooses which process to gain approval with.

That said, if the AAP fails, council only has PERMISSION to seek the borrowing. They could choose to ignore that permission and hold a referendum as a new bar for themselves before passing the borrowing bylaw.

Funny how the Canada Winter Games didn’t need to go to either AAP or a referendum… It’s going to cost significantly more than the dike.

Not that I am a fan of the winter games either, but, it at least has a chance of recovering some revenue back to the city. Does the dike?

If anyone who Identifies themselves from city hall phones me to verify my vote are gonna get an earful about what I think of the roads in this town. I need to vent.

Think of it as a verbal AAP.